Mother Places Child In “Extensive Therapy” After Manga Exposure

According to NWFDailyNews.com (via a link from Fark), a Florida mother has placed her teenage son in “extensive therapy” after he read a manga that was aimed at adults. If the article is accurate, the boy stole the manga from the general stacks at the public library by placing it in his backpack without checking it out. According to his mother, he then “lost his mind” after reading the title. His mother has since placed her son in a home in order to receive therapy.

The news article does not specify which series the book came from, but another site suggests that it was a volume of Gantz. According to the second source, the boy had taken volumes of Psychic Academy, which is rated 13 and up, and Gantz which is rated 18+. Psychic Academy is a pretty innocuous title as far as disturbing imagery goes, and Gantz does have depictions of graphic violence. So, more than likely, the boy’s exposure to Gantz “caused” whatever episode his mother observed.

However, regardless of which title the boy was exposed to, neither should have caused such a reaction that his mother would have him checked for mental health issues. There has to be some other underlying factor that the mother has not acknowledged. Also, the mother has refused to return the books to the library (which should constitute blatant theft if they were never checked out), and since the incident has begun pushing petitions to have “anime” (which is technically Japanese animation, not graphic novels) removed from the library. She was able to obtain over 200 signatures on the petition, but according to some of the signers, they were mislead and told it was a petition to stop pornography from being available.

Now, the mother, who has founded a local group called “Protect Our Children,” has gone before the Crestview city council to ask that all manga be removed from the city’s library system as it can be destructive to children. The library system is set up to stop children from borrowing books that are not approved for their age group, but apparently this isn’t a good enough resolution for her. Instead of doing her due diligence and watching her child to ensure he stayed in the young adult section, she allowed him to not only read books that were adult only, but take it from the library without authorization. Perhaps she feels that the state needs to “protect our children” themselves because parents like her are incapable of doing it for their own kids.

[…] might remember Gantz from this story about a FL mom who says she had to send her son to psychotherapy after he read the manga. I wonder how she’ll take this news. Gantz is being made into not 1 but 2! live action […]